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Camp NaNoWriMo Wrap-Up: What an April.

Tuesday, May 8, 2018

So I know that it's been a while since Camp NaNoWriMo ended, but I'll get straight to the point: I achieved my goal of 25k words. I wrote an entire novella. I won!

To those unfamiliar with NaNoWriMo/Camp, you don't actually "win" anything, nor is there a ranking. All "winning" means is that I achieved my goal. That's it. And, I can actually say that I wrote twenty-five thousand words in a month.

In this post, I wanted to share with y'all how the rest of my writing adventure went, and what I learned from this month of writing a novella. Also, I want to tell you about the actual novella itself and FINALLY give y'all a synopsis of this thing I've been working on. :)

How'd it go? What'd I learn?

I'll be honest, I kind of lost momentum writing this novella. And you know what? That's okay.

Writing anything in such a time crunch as a month isn't always easy anyway. I mean, when I was doing NaNoWriMo back in November, and I told people I was having to write at least 1,337 words per day, people's reactions varied from cringing to "wow, I couldn't do that." Does that mean it's easy for the person writing it?

Well, it depends.

I figured out that the secret to projects like this is heavy outlining. I heavily outlined my NaNoWriMo novel, and I found that it was way easier to meet, and even exceed, my daily writing goals. Being a little more spontaneous with this project made it a little more challenging, and I wish I would have outlined my novella more this month.

But the thing that ultimately led me to finishing this novella was the story I was trying to tell. I knew that if I didn't finish writing the first draft of this story, I would regret it, because I loved the plot I came up with. Having that goal in mind was what kept me going, and I'm so glad I was able to finish the novella and have another finished first draft in my hands...well, on my laptop, but still.

Savannah, tell us about this novella already.

...sure, okay. ;)

Jessica Smith is about to live the dream. She’s a bright-eyed twenty-something who’s just moved to a place of her own - in the suburbs! It seems like everything is falling into place. She’s hired for a great position at a great job, she meets a cute guy, and her new community is picture-perfect.

Or so she thinks.

Soon, cracks appear in the surface. Why do her personal belongings keep disappearing? Why does the guy she’s dating seem too good to be true? And who is the brooding, handsome runaway who’s stopped at her doorstep in the middle of the night, and why is he telling Jessica she’s in danger?

This is “Do Life,” a novella by Savannah Cottrell that’s a high-stakes adventure that takes place inside a video game that asks the question…what does it mean to be able to make your own choices?

And I guess y'all want a cover, too? That...will have to wait until closer to release...which is going to be this Fall, because I have my debut novel releasing this summer. Stay tuned for that!

Thank you guys so much for following along my novella-writing journey. Y'all are amazing. :)